


The One Where Sam Is Asked A Question

by Moorishflower



Series: A Cold Academic Hell [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-19
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:46:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's no stranger to being asked out - Jessica had been the one to eventually drag him away from schoolwork in order to go out on a proper date. He's never been asked out by a guy almost twice his age before, though. Not that he's complaining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Sam Is Asked A Question

Sam is getting kind of tired of the weird brand of personal denial that Dean is burying himself under. He’s like that myth of ostriches burying their heads in the sand to avoid danger. Every time he thinks he’s getting close to forming a meaningful relationship with someone other than Sam, he panics and starts piling on the self-pity. _I’m not the relationship kind of guy_ or _I’m not really boyfriend material_ , shit like that. Like he’s been doing for the past couple weeks.

Like he’s doing _now_.

“God _damn_ , this is nasty.”

Sam shrugs, and takes a sip of his caramel macchiato. He always eats in the morning, and he always has a cup of the sweetest coffee he can get; it’s the only time during the day when he feels the need to load up on sugar and carbs. He gets surly, otherwise. Dean stares at the Starbucks cup, scowl firmly in place. “I don’t understand how you can drink that crap this early in the morning.”

Sam looks pointedly at the tiny Styrofoam cup that Dean is drinking from. The university has yet to climb aboard the “going green” bandwagon, but there are a couple groups on campus dedicated to changing that. Sam sometimes helps out at their rallies, when he has the time. “You shouldn’t talk when you’re drinking your own flavor of crap.”

“At least this is _real_ coffee, not an ice cream sundae in a cup.”

Sam takes another sip of delicious, caramel-flavored syrupy goodness. Dean’s scowl reaches volcanic proportions before abruptly smoothing out as Sam says, “ _So_ , how are your classes going? It’s been a week.”

“A week of hell. Crowley’s gonna be the death of me, man, all I caught in Friday’s lecture was something about the Crusades and we’re all gonna die young and poor.”

“There was more to it than that.” Shit. Was there really? Crowlet’s lectures are unpredictable at best, and scathing at worst. He doesn’t keep to the syllabus and there’s already been one day where he’s done nothing but rant about how the Church of England is vastly superior to the Catholic Church, except according to him that’s like comparing a pile of crap to a slightly small pile of crap. Sam reaches for his backpack, digging through for his religious studies notebook, intent on checking, just to make sure. “I _think_.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t. But hey, at least we know how to answer every question on the midterm. ‘What is your future like?’ _Fucking awful_. Easy A.”

Sam laughs softly, giving up on finding his notebook – it’s probably back at the apartment – and picking up his macchiato again, taking another sip. “You didn’t really answer the question.”

“Sure I did. First week was hell, man. First week of last semester was hell, first week of this semester was the same, and every first week after this is probably gonna be shitty, too.”

Sam leans forward. He’s taking a risk, bringing this up – Dean might just refuse to talk about it, and storm off if Sam presses him – but it’s a risk that’s necessary. He _can’t_ take any more of this “I’m not worthy” bullshit. “You haven’t…said anything.”

Dean stares at him. “What?”

“Normally you bitch about things when you’re pissed. Well, pissed about stuff that isn’t emotions-related. I haven’t heard you say a word. So, tell the truth. How was your first week?” Sam’s nearly holding his breath. He’s drawing attention to something that Dean’s been trying to hide from him, and there’s no guarantee that it will go well, or…if it will even go any way at all.

Dean, though, doesn’t immediately push away from the table, grab his shitty coffee, and stomp off. He stays seated, lips pursed in discontent. That’s…a start, Sam thinks. “It was _fine_. Busy. Lot of syllabuses. Syllabi. Whatever. There was a lot of ‘getting to know you’ shit.”

And now for the big one. “Did you get to know a certain psychology student?”

Dean freezes up, looking like a deer caught in headlights, and Sam quickly raises his own coffee cup, not drinking, but holding the pose so that it looks like he is. It means his eyes are almost closed, and the cup is in the way, so he can’t entirely see Dean’s face as he tries to process what he should do. Eventually, though, Sam hears a defensive, “ _Maybe_ ,” and he lowers his cup again, setting it on the table and leaning forward.

“Do I get to meet him?” He’s pushing his luck, he knows, but this guy has been playing a pretty significant role in Dean’s life for the past couple months, and Sam’s never even seen his face. He wonders if Dean’s worried that he’ll be uncomfortable because of the “guy” thing. That’s stupid – it’s never bothered him before, and, considering…well, _recent events_ in his own life, he has no room to complain.

“Considering that our thing might not even be a _thing_ , I’m gonna go with no.”

“You met Jessica!”

“Yeah, after you’d already been dating for a month!”

Sam shrugs. “But you still met her.”

Dean laughs, shaking his head. “Tell you what, Sam. If we start dating - _if_ \- then you’ll get to meet him.” Sam starts to smile, but then Dean says, “After a month.” His smile lessens, slightly, but doesn’t disappear entirely.

“You’re really gonna do that to me?”

“Sammy, this is the closest I’ve gotten to actually asking someone out since Lisa. I’m…”

Dean trails off, and Sam doesn’t say anything for a long moment. _I know_ , he thinks. _I know_. There aren’t a lot of things that scare Dean. Airplanes, mostly, and flying. But rejection is one of the things on that short list, alongside disappointing his family, and Sam knows that Dean has been avoiding rejection his whole life. Playing it safe with men and women in bars, men and women who wouldn’t even ask for his real name, let alone his phone number. That Lisa had come back, had actually _sought Dean out_ , had to have been…terrifying. And not only that, but she had a _kid_.

Sam’s not an expert on Dean’s issues…but he’s the closest thing the world’s got, and he knows what makes Dean’s smile vanish, when he thinks no one is paying attention.

  
“Do…do you want to talk?” Dean scowls at him, and Sam winces. “Yeah, yeah, I know, but…sometimes it’s nice to have a sounding board, you know?”

“I guess. It’s just that this feels like it could be… _big_. Really big.”

“He’s that nice, huh?”

“He’s a lot of things. Nice is on there. Hot. Smart. Way too good for me.”

“Give yourself a little credit.”

“Even if I did, he’d _still_ be too good for me.”

“Yeah, then you’re doing it wrong.”

Dean rolls his eyes, snorting softly. “Point is, he’s gonna get sick of me. I’m gonna make one too many mistakes and he’ll realize that I’m…” There’s a long, dense pause, and Sam fills in his own ending: _too stupid, not good enough, not boyfriend material_. “…not really his type.” Bingo. Sam leans forward, tapping his finger against the table. The tide of early morning students surges around them, slowly gaining in size and noise.

“How are you going to know if you don’t give him a shot?”

“You make it sound like he’s the one in danger of getting rejected.”

“Isn’t he, though? You’re not even giving him a chance.”

“I…no. That’s not…”

Sam gives Dean a _look_ , and Dean, after a long moment, glances away. He seems almost guilty. _Good_. That’s what Sam is aiming for.

“Maybe it’s a little bit like that.” Sam stills his hand, and then, slowly, reaches out and settles his fingers on Dean’s wrist. Holding on. _I’m here, man._ He doesn’t say that, though. Dean would just roll his eyes. But the touch means something, he thinks. It has to.

“Ask him,” Sam says. “If he says ‘no,’ well, fuck him. He’s not as good as you thought he was.”

“Look at you, getting all protective.” Dean looks down at where Sam’s hand is still curled against his wrist, and Sam quickly pulls his arm back. He’s overstayed his welcome.

“Someone’s got to do it.”

“Freaky reversal shit.”

“Yeah, God forbid that I ever become anything other than the seven year-old you remember me as.”

Dean reaches across the table, shoving his fingers into Sam’s hair and rubbing vigorously. Sam groans, trying to shove Dean’s arm away, but there’s a laugh caught somewhere in his throat, threatening to spill over. He always says he doesn’t like it when Dean treats him like a kid. Like his _kid brother_. But, the truth is, when Dean isn’t being condescending about it it’s kind of…nice.

Dean finally pulls back, grinning slightly.

“All right, Sammy. I’ll ask. But if he says ‘no,’ you can’t complain about me being in a bad mood for a few days.”

Sam blows his mussed hair away from his eyes. “A few days? Try a few _months_. But…yeah. Fine, I get it. You gonna see him today?”

Dean stills for a moment, watching the student center slowly come to life around them. He idly swirls his coffee, but doesn’t drink from it. Sam holds his breath.

“Tomorrow,” Dean says. “I’ll tell him tomorrow.”

Sam quickly takes a sip of his now-lukewarm macchiato in order to hide his grin.

~

Sam checks his email every day. Unlike Dean, who’s perfectly content to let any important messages he might have sit idle until the end of the world (or until the Internet ceases to exist, whichever comes first), Sam likes to know what’s happening around the university. He likes to know about upcoming events (he’d taken Jessica to a few of the campus-sponsored concerts, but she hadn’t seemed terribly impressed), he likes to know about internship opportunities, and he likes to keep in touch with professors that he’s had in the past. He knows most people consider him to be “one of _those_ guys,” as Dean puts it (for all his bluntness, Dean’s still too polite to call Sam a brown-noser to his face), but Sam doesn’t care. There’s nothing wrong with keeping up on current events, whether they’re out in the real world or contained within the tiny bubble of university life.

So, when Sam gets an email from Gabriel, he knows about it, literally, about five minutes after it arrives in his inbox. It might be serendipitous, or it might be fate – Sam’s not about to question it. All he knows is that his first class is at nine, and he has about a half-hour to get ready, to wake Dean up and remind him that they have religious studies together and he should _really_ probably be getting dressed ( _no, sweatpants and a t-shirt don’t count as dressed, Dean_ ), and there’s an email in his Portal inbox from Gabriel’s address: Ga_novak@portal.edu. Sam knows it immediately, even though he’s never seen it before. He wonders if that counts as creepy and obsessive, or just… _interested_.

He’s going to go with the latter.

Sam glances over his shoulder, quickly, just in case Dean’s decided to get up on his own for once. He used to be good with getting up early, back when their father moved them around once every couple of weeks. God help you if John Winchester caught you sleeping in when there was work to be done, though Sam will admit that the man wasn’t a hypocrite in that regard. He was up at six-thirty every single day, as regular as clockwork, and he’d expected the same thing of his sons. It’s a habit that Sam has never really managed to break himself of, though part of that probably has something to do with being a morning person as well.

Dean, though, is still asleep. Or, at least, he’s pretending to be asleep and hoping that no one comes to get him, which is just as good, as far as Sam is concerned. Satisfied that the coast is clear, Sam quickly opens Gabriel’s email and is immediately assaulted by the guy’s somewhat unorthodox choice of font color: lime green. Sam can only imagine what kind of headaches Gabriel causes whenever he sends out emails…but hadn’t Castiel mentioned that Gabriel doesn’t check his email much? Or doesn’t use it much? One of the two. Either way, Sam feels…a little bit privileged – and sort of headache-y, from staring at the font, but he highlights the bulk of the message, and that fades away soon enough.

 _Hey, kiddo,_

 _I got your presents. Or, at least, I’m assuming they’re from you, since when I asked Castiel about it he was evasive and sort of smiling a little, and all he’d say was that you came by to talk to me about something, and that he went to go get you some forms to fill out and by the time he came back the chocolates were just sitting there on my desk._

 _So…thanks. :) The chocolates are all amazing. How’d you know I like Ferrero Rocher? They’re the same company who make Nutella, you know. If you’ve never had any, you should try it sometime. Absolutely delicious._

 _I was wondering if you’d like to meet up sometime this week. You can give me those forms that Castiel got for you, and I’ll make sure they get filed. Don’t trust the secretaries around here, I think they make a game out of “losing” your papers and then seeing how long it takes for you to give up on them._

 _Email me back, or call me. My number’s at the bottom._

 _\- Gabriel_

Sam’s breath catches in his throat. _Call me_. Not “you can give me a call at” or “contact me at.” _Call me_. Maybe he’s reading too much into it, but that’s the sort of thing you say to someone who’s a friend, right? Or…or someone who’s potentially _more_ than a friend? It’s not professional, that’s for sure, and for all that Sam thinks that Gabriel is an unprofessional jackass a lot of the time, there’s no doubt in his mind that the guy is good at his job. He takes it seriously, when it’s important that he does so.

 _Call me._

Sam reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, flipping it open and staring at the blank screen. They have sixteen minutes to get to campus. That’s still plenty of time, but it means Dean might be wearing sweatpants after all.

Sam closes his phone, stuffing it back into his pocket and quickly x-ing out of his email. He doesn’t have time to make a call right now, and he sure as hell doesn’t have time to write an email (especially not one that says everything he _wants_ to say…not that he’d do that, though, not in real life). But he has his laptop in his backpack, and he’s got at _least_ twenty minutes between his religious studies class and the criminal justice class after that, and then another couple of hours until his communications class. Plenty of time to compose an email.

Or…or make a phone call.

Pushing away from the computer desk, Sam grabs his backpack and hurries into Dean’s room, shaking his brother awake (and very nearly getting a fist in the face for his troubles) and then hovering nervously in the kitchen while Dean pulls on a pair of jeans and a shirt that’s hideously inappropriate, even for a college student (seriously, Sam could stick his _fist_ through the hole at the hem). He’s going to do it. He’s going to call Gabriel after his criminal justice class, and that way he has plenty of time to talk to the guy, even though they’re probably only going to be planning a face-to-face meeting. Sam thinks about his schedule, and determines that Thursday is probably his best bet. He’s only got two classes on Thursdays, sociology and his other criminal justice course, and both of those will just involve a lot of note-taking, and they’re both fairly early in the day, leaving him with plenty of time to…to do whatever he wants.

Whatever Gabriel is interested in. Within reason.

“All right, all right,” Dean grumbles from his bedroom, and then he stomps out, still looking mostly asleep, wearing his leather jacket rather than the nice, fleece one that Sam got him last year. It’s what Sam has come to think of as Dean’s “comfort” jacket, one of the few presents from their father that doesn’t hold any bad memories. “Should have woken me up earlier.”

“I was checking my email!”

Dean raises a questioning eyebrow. “Oh, got a message from your secret boyfriend, huh? Did he tell you that your eyes are like stars and he wants to meet as soon as the sun goes down?”

“I _will_ punch you. In the face.”

Dean laughs shortly. “C’mon, Sam, you know I’m not the kind to judge. I’m a lot of things, but a hypocrite isn’t one of them.”

“The jury’s still out on that, you know.”

Dean stiffens, slightly, but then shakes it off – whatever “it” was – and heads for the door. He’s wearing his heavy boots, too, the ones he’d stolen from dad when he was fourteen, except they didn’t fit him, then, and he’d had to wait another two years before he could wear them and not slide around in them. Now, Sam knows, they fit Dean like they were his boots all along.

Sometimes Sam envies the weird relationship that Dean had with their father. No matter how many times dad yelled, no matter how crazy he got, no matter how many tables Dean smashed into in his attempts to avoid a thrown bottle…Dean was always, fairly obviously, their father’s favorite. Sam had always been the…the _disappointment_. The one who wasn’t interested in the military, or in fixing cars. John Winchester had seen his youngest son’s interest in academia – in becoming a lawyer – as an abandonment of his duties to his family. Sam had grown up with that burden laying heavy on him, the knowledge that, no matter what he did, Dean would always be their father’s perfect soldier, his perfect _son_ , and Sam would always be different.

“Hey, you okay?”

Sam shakes his head slowly, clearing his mind of the bad memories. Dean is staring at him, looking faintly concerned, one arm partially outstretched, hand reaching for Sam’s shoulder. He quickly drops it as soon as it becomes apparent that Sam is aware of his surroundings again.

“I…yeah,” Sam says, and then rolls his shoulders and brushes past Dean on his way to the door. “I’m fine.”

“Sammy.” Sam pauses, glancing back over his shoulder. Dean looks…uncomfortable. “You know that I…really _don’t_ mind who you date, right? I mean, if they make you happy, then I’m all for it.”

“What if Jessica and I decided to try and work things out?”

Dean winces, extravagantly. “I’d…reserve the right to be a total asshole to her whenever I wanted?” Sam frowns. “ _Okay_. I’d try to be…polite. That’s all you’re getting out of me. But it’s not Jessica, is it? It can’t be Jessica, it’s a dude.”

“I don’t think I ever confirmed that, did I?”

“You pretty much did.”

“ _Christ_.” Sam throws open the front door, stalking out into the cold and the damp and then waiting by the Impala; Dean has the keys, and Sam vigorously rubs his hands together as he waits for Dean to open the doors. A moment later, he hears the _click_ of the front door locking, and glances up as Dean’s nudges against his side.

“None of that was bullshit, though,” Dean says softly. “About…you know. Wanting you to be happy, no matter who the person is. If it’s a dude, or…or _anyone_. Well.” Dean shrugs as he unlocks the car. “Within reason.”

It’s a weird, half-assed sort of blessing, but it _is_ a blessing, in Dean’s own way, and Sam is…weirdly grateful for it. It makes him think that, maybe, if he ever told Dean about Gabriel, that Dean wouldn’t call him out on his own hypocrisy, because Sam still remembers telling his brother that he _didn’t approve_ of student-teacher relationships. That conversation has been replaying itself way too often in his mind. Like it was some sort of…of _omen_. Which is stupid, because there’s no such thing as omens, but when Sam’s lying in bed, half asleep and thinking of Gabriel and Dean and all the things that have happened to him, little things like that seem infinitely more plausible.

“I get it, Dean,” he says softly. “Thanks.” And then, before Dean can try to grill him any more on his “secret boyfriend,” Sam climbs into the car and closes the door, resting his head against the window and letting the cold leech some of the thoughts out of him, until the only thing he can focus on is the chill, and the wet, empty streets of their little college town.

When Dean climbs into the driver’s seat he doesn’t say a word, and Sam is stupidly, pathetically grateful.

~

Sam calls Gabriel at around four that evening, between his communications class at six and his criminal justice class at three, leaving him with plenty of time to do…something. He isn’t sure what he’s going to do with Gabriel, on the phone, for two hours. Well, he can think of _some_ things, but they’re all wildly inappropriate and he would never, _ever_ act on those thoughts, ever, because he just doesn’t _do_ those sorts of things. Sam’s not like Dean, he’s never been particularly eager to get to the physical side of relationships. Sure, he and Jessica had had sex – he’d enjoyed it, he’d enjoyed sex with Jessica a _lot_ , but it hadn’t been…necessary.

He’s never wanted someone _this much_ , and the intensity of it frightens him a little.

The phone only rings twice before it’s picked up, and Sam has to resist the urge to hold his breath in those brief seconds between the moment he hears someone breathe on the other end of the line, and the moment he figures out who is answering the phone.

“Hello, Gabriel Novak here, if you’re looking for some advisory help, well, you should have made an appointment online. If you just want to tell me how amazing and wonderful I am, then –”

Sam clears his throat. “Uh…Gabriel?”

Silence on the other end of the line. And then… “Sam?”

 _God. This is really happening._ He has no idea why he’s getting so worked up over this. It’s just a _phone call_. It’s not even like he’s asking Gabriel out or anything, he’s just calling to set up a meeting so he can give Gabriel his transferal forms, and…

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Hey! Long time no see! Sorry I wasn’t there to meet with you the other day. My doctor said that it was within his rights to call the police and have them escort me to my follow-up appointments in handcuffs, and I didn’t want to risk it. Good news, though! The nose plaster finally came off! I’m finally back to my rakishly devastating self!”

That startles a laugh out of Sam, and he can practically see Gabriel smirking in response. “That’s…that’s good, Gabriel. I’m glad.” _I’m glad you’re not hurting anymore because of me._ “You sent me an email?”

“Oh, yeah! Thanks again for the chocolates, by the way. I’m working on the See’s right now. I’ll try and save one or two for you when I next see you, though.”

Sam breathes out, quietly. “That’s…you don’t have to do that. I got those for you.”

“Yeah, but sharing it with the people you like is the best part of candy.”

 _People you like. Oh God._ “So…we _are_ meeting, then?”

“Of course. Thought I’d change my mind?”

“I could always just give the forms to Mr. Novak, or…”

“Nope! I don’t trust Castiel to handle my paperwork. You know he keeps all his forms in a trapper keeper? A fucking _trapper keeper_. I think those things were popular when _I_ was a kid.”

“And where do you keep _your_ forms?”

Sam hears shuffling in the background, like Gabriel is rummaging through a pile of paper, and he grins. “Oh, here and there. Everywhere. But mostly here, in the office. So, how about that meeting? Based on your schedule, I’m thinking Thursday?”

“Did you _look up_ my schedule?”

“Of course. What’s the point of being an advisor if you don’t occasionally use the position to your advantage? In a strictly non-creepy way, of course.”

“Strictly non-creepy, right.”

There’s a pause, and then Gabriel sighs, quietly. There’s a note of pain in the sound that Sam isn’t used to hearing. “If it bothers you, I’m not about to do it again. I don’t want to remind you of Zachariah.”

“No! No, I mean…you don’t. At all. I just keep forgetting that you’re not as…orthodox as other advisors.”

“That’s one way of putting it. So, Thursday? Around, say…four?”

“Sounds…” Sam swallows. _Now or never._ Even if it isn’t a big deal. Even if he’s only going to be dropping off some forms and then leaving. He can’t walk around Gabriel on tiptoes for the next year and a half, not if he wants to get things _done_ , so he needs to learn how to function around the guy without turning into a drooling, hormonal idiot. “Sounds good.”

“Awesome. I’ll be in the advisor’s lounge. Well, I say lounge, but it’s really more of a cupboard. Ask one of the secretaries and she’ll show you where it is.”

“But…why can’t we just meet in…”

“Whoops! Castiel’s here, probably to lecture me about taking better care of myself. Gotta go, kiddo! Ciao!”

The phone goes dead, and Sam is left holding it against his ear, listening to the dial tone, feeling vaguely idiotic, but also, mysteriously, _glad_.

Thursday, at four. In the advisor’s lounge.

He’ll be there.

~

Sam had trouble finding something to wear.

He’s normally okay with that sort of thing – figuring out what to wear, that is – but it’s Thursday and he’d woken up half aroused and half terrified, which is probably the most uncomfortable combination of emotions _ever_ , and he’s been unable to shake the residual oddness of it ever since. And sure, he could wear his usual jeans and a sweater, but isn’t that a little… _casual_? The point of this whole exercise is to teach himself how to stop stepping so lightly around Gabriel, but Sam can’t help but feel a little ambivalent all the same.

He eventually goes with jeans and a sweater, yeah, but it’s a _nice_ sweater. A creamy, off-white color, something that he thinks Jessica must have gotten him, because both he and Dean have been trained to pick out dark clothes only. They hide stains better.

Still, it looks _good_ on him, and Sam drifts through the majority of his Thursday feeling, if not exactly confident, then at least not as terrified as he felt when he woke up.

The arousal hasn’t really gone away, though. Sam’s kind of pissed about that.

It’s not raining, but it’s grey and dismal, and the administration building is warm when Sam steps into it, automatically stomping his feet to dislodge any remaining mud and leaf debris. The sweater seems suddenly unnecessary – wouldn’t a nice t-shirt have gotten the message across just as well? He can practically hear Dean’s voice in his head: _yeah, you could write the words “fuck me” across the chest and see how that goes_. Sam snorts quietly, unzipping his jacket and pulling it off his shoulders and halfway down his arms, trying to get some air circulating. There’s a blonde girl sitting at the desk in the front hall, probably a student. She’s idly examining her nails and, every so often, glancing at the huge, clunky desktop computer that dominates most of the space available to her on the desk. Sam cautiously approaches.

“Excuse me?”

The girl holds up one hand, shushing him gently. “They’re about to kiss.”

“I…what?”

“ _Buffy_ and _Spike_ ,” she says, as if it’s something that Sam should know about, as if he’s an _idiot_ for not immediately realizing the chemistry between Buffy and Spike, and of _course_ they’re about to kiss, what is he, some kind of dunce? Sam clears his throat, and the girl makes a soft sound of annoyance and then hits her keyboard’s spacebar. She looks up at him, and her eyes widen.

“I always liked the idea of Buffy and Xander more than Buffy and Spike,” Sam says, and the girl nods faintly. She’s wearing a nametag – “Becky,” it says, in handwritten letters. “I’m here to see, uh…Gabriel Novak? He said he’d be in the advisor’s lounge…”

Sam hadn’t thought it was possible, but the girl’s – Becky’s – eyes widen even further, and she immediately stands, leaning over the desk and grabbing Sam’s hand before he can think to take a step back.

“So _you’re_ the guy,” she says, and Sam blinks.

“ _What_?”

“Nothing! Or, well, you’ll see! I promise!” Becky beams at him, a tiny, blonde bundle of enthusiasm, and Sam’s…a little bit weirded out, sure, but he’s a little charmed, too. It’s odd, having all that excitement directed towards _him_ , especially considering that he doesn’t know what he _did_. And he’s already nervous enough, what with meeting Gabriel…

“This way!” Becky tugs on his hand, pulling him out of the main room and into a hallway, in the opposite direction of the stairs leading down to the basement. “He’s been waiting for you!”

 _You don’t make it sound creepy at all,_ Sam thinks dryly, but he follows along after Becky, not pulling his hand away from her, because…because it just seems _rude_. She’s so unabashedly happy about _something_ , something that happens to involve Sam and, possibly, Gabriel, and he doesn’t want to take that away from her. He looks down at Becky’s hand, curled in a death grip around his wrist. “Hey…do I know you?”

“Nope,” Becky says quickly. “I mean, I’ve seen you around campus, but other than that, no.”

“I could have sworn I knew you from…”

“Here we are!” Becky abruptly lets go of his wrist, and Sam takes another step before he realizes they’ve stopped, nearly running into her. They’ve come to a halt outside a closed door at the very end of the hallway; all the other doors are either partially or all the way open, and the majority of them seem to lead into small offices. They’re all marked, though, with the names of the people inside. The door they’re standing in front of is mysteriously unlabeled. “If you need anything, just…well, you’ll have Mr. Novak in there with you, so I guess ask him! He’s always pretty well-prepared!”

Sam blinks. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome!” And then, with one last blazing smile directed his way, Becky pushes past him and heads back down the hall. If her hand happened to brush against his hip, well…Sam’s not about to say anything about it, because with Becky’s absence comes the return of his insecurity. He straightens the hem of his sweater, and then runs his fingers back through his hair, realizing, at the last second, that doing so is just going to make him look even more mussed and windblown. He grimaces. _Too late_. There’s nothing he can do about it now, though.

So, taking a deep breath to steady himself, Sam gives his sweater (why did he decide to wear this stupid thing, anyways?) one last tug, and then turns the knob, and pushes the door open.

Gabriel is alone in the room, and Sam has about ten seconds in which that’s the only thing he notices, and he’s thankful for it, because he thinks this is already going to be hard enough without adding innocent bystanders to the equation. Then the rest of his brain catches up with his relief, and he realizes that Gabriel is alone in the room, yes, but he’s also wearing a tie – a _tie_ \- and an outfit that would look ostentatious on anyone else, but seems right at home on Gabriel, all dark, navy blue silks (or something that at least looks like silk), and what Sam knows is called a “smoking jacket,” but which he’s never actually… _seen_ before. He’d thought that only billionaire playboys wore smoking jackets, and, even then, only in the movies.

Oh, yeah, and there’s also a gaily wrapped present sitting on the table in front of Gabriel.

“Uh,” Sam says, and Gabriel glances up at him, immediately smiling and pushing himself to his feet. He looks out of place, with his jacket and his slacks and his hair slicked back, surrounded by the tiny lounge’s vending machines, and the equally tiny couch, table, and microwave-fridge combo.

“Sam! Glad you came!” Sam clears his throat, stepping into the lounge and letting the door fall shut behind him. Not _glad you could make it_ , he notices, but _glad you came_. Like Gabriel had doubted he would show up at all.

“I,” Sam begins, and then is abruptly distracted by Gabriel approaching him, halting just inside what Sam considers to be the edge of his personal space. Close enough to touch. To shake hands, or to hug, or to… “Wow, I’m sorry. You look…” _Really good._ Odd, yes, but…good. “Are you going to a meeting after this?” _Or a fancy dinner? Or an orgy?_ As far as Sam knows, all three are very distinct possibilities.

Well. Given what he knows of Gabriel, and Gabriel’s personality, maybe the meeting is less of a possibility than the other two.

Gabriel only smiles, though, and gestures towards the table. There are, Sam notices, only two chairs. He wonders if it’s always been like that, or if Gabriel moved the other chairs to somewhere discrete and out of the way. “Nah, sometimes I just like to get all gussied up. Good for the self-esteem. I see you had the same idea.” Sam glances down at his sweater, pulling at the hem, and feels his cheeks heating. Is he… _blushing_? He hasn’t blushed since he was sixteen!

“It was a gift,” Sam mumbles, and readily takes a seat at the table, across from the lavishly decorated present. He thinks he sees glitter. Which, to be honest, falls in line with Gabriel’s personality, too – it’s shiny, it implies an air of almost childish exuberance, and it gets fucking _everywhere_.

Gabriel remains standing, and Sam looks up at him, at the way he’s holding his arms, the set of his shoulders. He almost looks…nervous. “I know you came to just give me those forms that Castiel foisted on you, but my brother’s taken it upon himself to see that I practice what I preach, so I want to _talk_ to you, as well. You don’t have any frat parties to go to, do you?”

“I’m not in a frat,” Sam says faintly, and Gabriel’s smile eases, as if in relief.

“Oh, _good_ ,” he says, and then drops down into the other seat. He rests his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers and peering at Sam over them, looking…well. Looking a lot of things. Intense. Interested. Vaguely confused, like Sam is a puzzle that he’s been trying to figure out for a long time. He nudges the present forward with the side of his arm, expression unchanging. “This is for you.”

“Why?”

Gabriel shrugs. “You got me a gift, I got you a gift. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”

“Not between students and advisors,” Sam says cautiously, and Gabriel lowers his hands.

“How about I make you a deal, then? In here, you and me, we’re just Gabriel and Sam. Out there, we’re whoever we have to be, but _here_ …we can be ourselves. Does that sound good to you?”

Sam swallows, and then reaches for the present, pulling it closer and pulling slightly at the extravagant bow perched on top. “Yeah. That sounds…good.”

“Then open your present, Sam.”

Sam pulls harder on the bow, unraveling it. It’s made of some soft, velvety material, and he rubs his thumb against the grain of it before setting it aside and getting to work on the wrapping paper itself. Everything is covered with gold glitter, peppering the dark blue paper like tiny stars. “You make it sound so serious.”

“Maybe it is.”

Sam pauses, and then carefully slides his finger underneath the tape, pulling up the wrapping paper all in one piece. He’d started being careful with how he unwrapped his presents when he was around ten or eleven, when he’d first realized that the newspaper – or, if they had some spare cash, actual wrapping paper – he was ripping up could be re-used the next year. Dean had shouted at him when he’d found out that Sam was saving all the paper. He hadn’t wanted his little brother to realize how precariously they were actually living. Even now, it’s a habit that he hasn’t really bothered to rid himself of, and Gabriel watches impatiently as Sam carefully peels back the paper and sets it aside to reveal a small box. Large enough to hold something breakable, he thinks. Something expensive.

“While I’m still living,” Gabriel prompts, and Sam laughs shortly, and then pries the box open, and stares down into the interior of it, momentarily unsure of what he’s looking at. Then he reaches into the box, and pulls out…

“Earmuffs?” _Nice_ earmuffs. They feel like they might be made of actual fur, silkily soft in a way that the fake stuff can’t manage. Sam unfolds them, running his fingers along the velvet-covered headband, then over the fur-covered pads. A part of him isn’t surprised – Gabriel seems like the type to take pleasure in tactile sensations, things like silk and fine cotton. What _does_ surprise Sam is how much he’s enjoying the softness, too.

“You always look so cold when you come to visit,” Gabriel says quietly. “And there’s going to be a low of sixteen on Saturday.”

Sam raises the earmuffs, fitting them over his head. They’re warm. And not only warm, they’re _comfortable_. “What happens Saturday?”

“I take you out to dinner.” Sam lowers the earmuffs, letting them rest around his neck as he stares at Gabriel. “That is, if you agree to go.”

“I…” _Say no. Wait, say yes! No, you can’t, he’s like fifteen years older than you! This will never work out, you’re going to get involved and it’s going to end up hurting you, just like getting involved with Jessica did. You’re like Dean, you love too much, and too quickly, that’s always been the problem. Everyone else isn’t like that._

Sam swallows, stroking his fingers against the soft fur of the earmuffs. He imagines what Dean will say, when he sees them. _I see you’ve finally decided to come out of the closet, Sammy. Next time, though, leave the clothes in there._ Something like that, but Dean will be smiling, too, because…

 _None of that was bullshit, you know. About…wanting you to be happy._

Dean is going to pitch a fit when he finds out about this.

But Sam wants to be happy, too.

He pulls the earmuffs from around his neck, carefully folding them up and then putting them in his jacket pocket. His sweater doesn’t seem so stifling, anymore. Nothing does. Gabriel is watching him, warily, with an expression that almost seems to imply that he’s been here before. And maybe he has, with someone else. Maybe he’s done this with other students, too, though Sam wants to doubt that, wants it to be untrue in a desperate and terrible way.

But maybe Gabriel is new to this. Feeling too much, too fast. Sam leans forward, sliding his hands across the table and curling his fingers around the curves of Gabriel’s forearms.

“Saturday at six,” Sam says. “You choose the place.”

Gabriel lowers his arms to the table, and Sam’s hands slide, until their fingers are touching. Dean would call it unbearably sappy.

Sam’s thinking that it’s just about perfect.

“Can I pick you up?” There’s an anxious note in Gabriel’s voice, like he’s still afraid that Sam will back out. Sam shakes his head.

“Not at my apartment,” he says, cautious. “My brother is…”

“Doesn’t know you like men?”

Sam snorts. “That’s…not a problem, trust me. He’s overprotective.”

“ _Ah_. Seeing as I’m an overprotective brother, I suppose I should have seen that coming.”

“I’ll walk down to the CVS on the corner. I can give you directions?”

“People will think I’m your drug hook-up.” Gabriel grins. “But…yeah, directions would be good.”

The earmuffs seem preternaturally warm in his pocket, and Gabriel is still smiling, as Sam finally lets go of his hands and reaches into his pocket for his phone, flipping it open and beginning to type out the directions to the CVS.


End file.
